


Bloody Janus

by mister_otter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Games, Halloween, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Mystery, Romance, Secrets, Spells & Enchantments, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 23:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mister_otter/pseuds/mister_otter
Summary: It's Halloween at Hogwarts, the most magical time of the wizarding year. Mysterious autumn is in the air. Anything might happen. And this year, it does.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 24
Kudos: 54
Collections: Round 11 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To my recipient: I hope this falls at least in the ballpark of what you imagined! It was fun working with your prompts!
> 
> Many thanks to eilonwy, whose own work I so admire! It is awesome beyond words to have her as a beta and a friend!

On the high, arched walkway of Hogwarts, beneath a windy October sky, a boy and girl stood talking.

“Draco won’t do it with me.”

“He won’t with me, either.” Blaise Zabini grinned at Pansy Parkinson, causing her to wrinkle her pretty, upturned nose in annoyance.

“This is serious, Blaise! Draco actually broke things off with me!’ Pansy scowled, her eyes on the distant hills, where a late evening sun stained the cloud bottoms an ominous, rusty red.

“Good omen for tonight’s fun and games,” said Blaise, nodding at the oddly colored sky. 

“Are you even listening to me? I said Draco and I are off. And I think it’s because of Hermione Granger!”

Blaise shook his head. “You must be mental, Pans. It’s Malfoy we’re talking about. He would never.” _Except that he totally would._ “What makes you think so?” 

“Witch’s intuition. And mine is never wrong! He hasn’t been himself at all since 6th Year started.”

“You need to cut him some slack.” Blaise extended his arms and stretched, then flexed his shoulder muscles. “Quidditch has been brutal this season. But more than that, Draco’s under a lot of stress with the Death Eater shite. We all are, but especially him. Can you imagine having Lucius Malfoy for a father right now?”

“No,” Pansy replied, even though she very much wanted the man for a father-in-law someday. “But none of that means he had to break things off with me!”

Blaise sighed. “What is it you want, then? Revenge? That’s never a good idea and you know it.”

Pansy gnawed her thumbnail and didn’t answer.

“If you spread your suspicions about Draco and Granger, he’ll hate you for it and you’ll never get him back. Besides, you could be wrong about them.” _Except that you’re not._

“Advise me, then.”

“How about trying to prove it, then promising to keep the information to yourself? Great for leverage.” 

Blaise, one part Slytherin and three parts Machiavellian, grinned. He privately thought Hermione Granger— sharp, brave, loyal, and fiercely protective— was just what his friend Draco needed. Deliciously cute Pansy, on the other hand, would be just right for _him._ Tonight would be the perfect time to set some things in motion.

Pansy stopped gnawing her thumbnail and stared. “You already have an idea, don’t you?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Then spill it. I’m not in the mood for games.”

“But you will be. Tonight’s the joint Halloween party, remember? The one we’re being forced to have with the Gryffindors, while Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are doing likewise?”

“Yeah.” Pansy rolled her eyes. “I got stuck as head of the snacks committee for Dumbledore’s stupid Paired-Houses Autumn Fun Fest.”

“Well, I’m in charge of games. And I have a killer one in mind. One that requires partners. We’ll team up Draco and Granger, then sit back and observe. If they’re into each other, we’re giving them the perfect opportunity to be alone together. Something that doesn’t happen every day at Hogwarts.”

A sly smile lit Pansy’s pretty face. “That’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. They’ll never know we’re watching! We can spy on them all night long.” 

The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. “Blaise? What if Draco really likes her? I mean, why would he? How could he, right? But I have a feeling that he does.” Pansy frowned, struggling with a complex thought. “It’s like… he might see Granger as a sort of rebellion. Something different, the very opposite of what’s expected of him. “

_Or maybe she’s the perfect antidote to the Death Eater poison he’s being fed._ “Could be,” Blaise replied. 

He had no use for blood prejudice, though he’d pretended that way at first in order to acquire Draco’s friendship. Anything, or anyone, that could be used to shake Draco loose from his Death Eater ties, was fair game to Blaise. 

“She’d be a disaster for him.” Pansy continued, her brown eyes wide and pleading. “But I wouldn’t be!” 

“Come on, Pans. No worries. Not tonight.” Blaise tugged gently at a strand of her windblown, dark hair. “Let’s just have fun and see where this evening leads. It might turn out completely different than you think.” _Especially if seeing Granger and Malfoy together sends you straight to me for comfort._

Wrapping one arm around her shoulders, he pulled her toward the tall doors at the far end of the walkway, leaving the strange, bloody-looking sunset to carry on without them.

*

By almost midnight, the Paired Houses Autumn Fun Fest was winding down.

Inside an abandoned prefect’s bathroom on a lower level of the old castle, a boy and girl stood pressed together, snogging each other senseless. 

“Draco!” Hermione Granger gasped, pulling back for the barest minute. “This is dangerous. Everyone’s just outside the door!”

“Dangerous. Mmmm.. You’re dangerous. I’m dangerous.” Draco’s mouth hovered over hers and then moved slowly down her neck, placing a love bite where it would be hidden by her tumbled curls. 

Hermione whimpered. Her hands, which had been fisted in his jumper, reached to untuck the shirt underneath from his jeans, her fingers gliding over his bare skin. 

Draco shivered and gave a soft groan. 

In early September, Dumbledore had assigned Hermione as mentor of Draco’s Muggle Studies project. Eight weeks later, they were snogging in an abandoned bathroom. And any place else they could find to steal a private moment.

Outside the door, a chant began, sluicing over them like a shock of cold water. 

“Jan-us! Jan-us! Jan-us!” Their classmates, waiting not very patiently while the pair took a turn at the last party game of the night. A spooky, Slytherin version of Bloody Mary known as Bloody Janus-- the ghost with two eerie, overlapping faces. 

According to Slytherin lore, Janus had been at Hogwarts sometime in the seventeenth century. Brilliant but badly malformed, he’d been cruelly mistreated. He’d taken his revenge by killing several fellow students in gruesome and creative ways.

There was no record that Janus had ever existed and no proof that anyone had ever succeeded in calling him, but Slytherins loved the game associated with his name. Because of Janus’ dual faces, it took two to perform the conjuring chant. The shadowy, echo-y abandoned bathroom with its spooky, tall mirror was the perfect game site.

It was perfect for other things, too. Sighing, Hermione untangled herself from Draco’s arms, removing her fingers from beneath his shirt and shaking out her curls.

“We’d better stop,” she whispered. “Someone might come.”

Draco gave her a look that said he wished it were _them._ But they weren’t to that stage in their relationship yet. It was only a week old, highly secret, and as yet undefined. 

Heaving a sigh of his own Draco quickly tucked in his shirt, straightened his jumper, and held out his hand. “Let’s call a ghost, then.” Together, they walked toward the candlelit mirror to begin the Janus chant.

*

Blaise, in charge of the Slytherin game choices, stood just outside the bathroom door. Pansy was at his side, a dejected look on her pretty face.

They’d watched Draco and Hermione all evening. Throughout the earlier games of Sardines (a perfect opportunity for anyone to sneak off together) and Clusters. Throughout all the circulating, snacking, chatting, and sometimes dancing. 

But Granger and Malfoy were never with or even near each other. 

Pansy seemed to take it as a hopeful sign that her intuition had been wrong. She’d been in an almost euphoric mood by the time they got around to Bloody Janus. So far they’d seen absolutely no hint that something was growing between her suddenly ex-boyfriend and Hermione Granger. 

Ron Weasley and Daphne Greengrass were the first pair to enter the bathroom and perform the chant. They claimed to see nothing in the mirror but their own reflections.

“Fits,” Pansy had murmured to Blaise. “What else would two narcissists see?” 

Blaise had laughed, his head close to Pansy’s to catch her whisper and breathe in the woodsy, citrus-y fragrance from her hair.

But things changed when Draco and Hermione’s turn came. Blaise and Pansy watched them walk into a short, downward-slanting corridor and approach the entrance that led to the bathroom proper. As the pair disappeared around the corner their eyes met and held, just briefly. Draco’s hand brushed across Hermione’s. 

No one who wasn’t watching closely would have noticed. But it was enough. Blaise had to clamp his fingers around Pansy’s arm to keep her from running after the other couple.

“Not now,” he’d hissed in her ear. “What we saw isn’t really proof of anything. It just means we need to investigate them some more.” 

“They looked at each other, Blaise,” she hissed back. “I saw agreement in that look. And he touched her hand!”

“It could have been accidental.” _Though it wasn’t_. “Maybe the look just meant, “Let’s be the first tonight to wake the ghost.”” 

Blaise had to admit, that little moment between Draco and Granger had been perfectly timed. It wasn’t quite the definitive one he needed, but it was enough to keep Pansy by his side and make her want to keep spying. Long after tonight.

Pansy was gnawing her thumbnail again. “I’ll hex them both. I’ll…”

Blaise stepped over and snatched a cup from Theo, who was standing nearby.

“Untwist your knickers, Pans, and drink this.” 

He handed her the cup. Hard apple cider. The powerful brew hadn’t been Dumbledore-approved for tonight’s party. But in a show of Interhouse unity at its finest, the 6th and 7th Years from both Houses were happily shit-faced from it. Blaise grinned. The Headmaster would be proud.

Pansy drained the cup in one gulp. 

“Better?” Blaise asked. “Of course you are. We’ll just watch for Draco and Granger to come out, see what effect being alone together for Bloody Janus has on them.”

Inside the stone chamber, Draco and Hermione were snogging again. 

The bathroom around them was dank and cavernous, with a large stone tub that hadn’t held water in decades. Fog pressed against a bank of three high windows as if seeking an entrance. The tall mirror, above deep stone sinks, was surrounded by candles set up for tonight’s party, all black and white with bravely glowing flames.

Draco imagined blowing out every candle except one, then lifting Hermione up to perch on the counter. She’d wrap her legs around his waist while he stood in front of her, his hands tangled in her hair, his mouth fused with hers. 

He couldn’t get enough of her. She couldn’t get enough of him. Together, they were as brilliant as all fuck. 

He’d never seen that before this autumn. Or maybe he’d always seen it. No matter. He was seeing it now. 

“Draco.” She pulled her mouth from his, trailing kisses along his jawline. “Everyone will start to wonder what’s taking so long. We have to do the chant.”

“Ugh.” He pressed his forehead to hers, then slid his hand down her arm and took her hand. “Bloody Janus is nothing but a bloody farce.”

Hermione smiled. “Maybe we can find some time for us later tonight. Right now, let’s call a ghost.” 

She tossed her curls and raised her wand, focusing on their reflections. “I’ll start.” 

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her voice soft and clear.

“Don’t worry.” Draco answered, his voice was equally low and clear. “It’s not my blood.”

According to legend, the call and response, if performed correctly, would bring the face of Janus into view. Though there was no collective wisdom on what might happen after that. 

“You’re bleeding.” Hermione’s voice was louder this time.

“Don’t worry. It’s not my blood.”

“You’re bleeding.” She raised her chin.

“Don’t worry. It’s not my blood.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Don’t worry… “ 

Over and over, until, on the seventh chant, they both jabbed their wands fiercely toward the mirror and shouted:

“It’s not my blood. It’s… YOURS.”

With a jarring screech, the mirror cracked down the middle. At the same moment, one of the high, fog-shrouded windows did the same. The fog seeped in, curling and gliding like an eerie, living thing. The candles winked out all at once. 

But not before Hermione and Draco saw it. A face in the mirror. Shadowy, distorted, with warped, overlapping features.

His shout, her shriek, sent Blaise and Pansy sprinting into the bathroom. 

All was darkness. The fog drifted, wafting on unseen air currents. They could just make out the tall outline of Draco with his arms wrapped around Hermione. The couple sprang apart as the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors poured into the room, everyone talking at once.

“What happened?” yelled Seamus Finnegan, while Ginny Weasley, always practical, magicked the candle flames back to life.

“I saw them, Blaise!” Pansy hissed. She was fairly vibrating with anger. “So did you! Draco had his arms around her.”

“Means nothing,” Blaise soothed, taking Pansy’s hand and rubbing his thumb over the palm. “They just had the shite scared out of them. They’d automatically jump together for protection. Pure reflex is all.”

“You really think that?” Pansy sounded hopeful but skeptical.

“Yeah. But we’ll need to keep spying until we know for sure. Starting tomorrow night. For now, let’s see what they have to say about what happened here.”

“We… we saw something.” Draco was speaking. Broken glass glittered in his and Hermione’s hair and on the shoulders of their jumpers.

Everyone was crowding round, talking at once, raised voices questioning and excited.

“A face? Did you see a face?”

“Was it double? Was it Janus?”

“What it was,” Hermione replied, her composure already regained enough to school her classmates, “Is a natural phenomenon. An optical illusion. Staring into a mirror in a dim room for a long time can lead to hallucinations. It’s possible that the brain misfires, causing reflections to appear distorted. Two faces turn into a single, creepy one.”

“Bloody Gryffindor know-it-all.” Pansy took a step toward Hermione. “If it’s an illusion, smart-arse, then what made the mirror crack?”

“Maybe that spicy bean dip you made for snacks. Powerful stuff!” Dean Thomas suggested crudely and everyone laughed. 

Neville elbowed his way past Pansy and Blaise with a large cup of apple cider in each hand, sloshing it onto Pansy as he went by. 

“Here.” He shoved the cups at Draco and Hermione. “You’ve earned this. Drink up, but do it quick. Snape’s on his way to break up the party. So much for Dumbledore trusting us to chaperone ourselves.

Quick _Reparos_ sorted the damaged bathroom. The cider vanished. 

By the time Snape arrived, the students were back at the main party room one level above, with most of the clearing away done. 

Everybody kept speculating about the mirror and the window. But this was the wizarding world at almost Halloween. Anything could happen, and sometimes did. Often with no easy explanation.

“Did you have anything to do with this?” Pansy whispered to Blaise.

“Surprisingly, no. But gods, I wish I did. Bloody perfect timing,” he whispered back. “Shite happens. Who knows why?”

The students gathered for the return to their dorms. Gryffindors to the tower, Slytherins to the dungeons. 

Across the crowded room, Malfoy and Granger locked eyes. Only Blaise, steering an oblivious Pansy toward the stairs, noticed the intensity of the look that passed between them. 

“Firestarters,” he murmured, grinning as Pansy glanced up at him curiously.

“What?”

“Er. _For_ starters, meet me tomorrow after Divination. We need to devise a plan.”

*

Three days later, Draco came to the conclusion that someone or some_thing_ might be stalking him.

The thought was mental. Ridiculous. The sort of paranoid idiocy no Quidditch-playing, focused- on-his-studies, possibly-in-love-for-the-first-time, Malfoy heir should have. 

He first noticed it coming out of the locker rooms the night after the Autumn Fun Fest. He’d lingered following practice, making sure his gear was properly stowed and repairing some damaged straws on his broom. 

Outside, the October day had already vanished into darkness, even though it was only just dinnertime. 

He’d walked alone. And as he’d done so, he’d realized he wasn’t so alone after all. 

Behind him, something was slipping stealthily, sliding in and out of the shadows. Always unseen but nevertheless there. He could sense it. Could feel the eerie, crawling sensation that, just out of sight, something was _thinking_ about him.

He’d whirled several times, imagining he saw movement from the corner of his eye. Nothing was there except stillness and silence. Yet the dark didn’t feel quite empty. Draco had reached the castle and gone in to dinner with his Occlumency senses tingling. 

He’d forgot all about the incident as he sat with his housemates, trying to catch Hermione’s eye without anyone noticing.

The next night, he’d been hoping for a private moment with Granger during Prefect rounds. But Hermione had been paired with Ron Weasley, quashing any chance of snogging in an empty classroom.

He patrolled alone, Pansy having begged off due to cramps. But once again he hadn’t felt alone. A presence seemed to be shadowing him. Never in view, but possibly _there_ just the same.

Draco had puzzled over it, then put it from his mind as he’d walked back to his dorm room, opened the door, and imagined finding a trail of clothes scattered across his floor. A trail that led to him and Granger, naked in his bed. 

He’d grinned at the thought. And sighed in relief. With an imagination that fucking good, it was no wonder he thought he was being stalked. 

Then, on the third afternoon, Draco took a brief nap before Quidditch practice. 

He’d awakened to find the word _Bloody_ scrawled across his left palm in rusty red letters.  
_Shit._


	2. Chapter 2

*

_Hogwarts Library, Three Nights Later_

“Granger. Something weird is happening. I think someone could be stalking me.”

Hermione looked up from reviewing the latest pages of his Muggle Studies project. Draco loved how she could so immediately come into a moment, switching her focus from his writing to his voice, her curiosity fully engaged by the time he’d finished speaking. 

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

Not “Oh, you’re a paranoid idiot.” _Which he might be_.

Not “It’s almost Halloween. Someone’s pranking you.” _Which they could be._

Instead, she was keeping an open mind about what he’d just admitted. An admission that had taken a fair amount of courage to verbalize.

Hermione placed her quill on top of the parchment and leaned closer. “Maybe you’d better tell me, then.” Her face, in the soft glow of the study lamp, was both pretty and concerned. 

He remembered the times he’d sat across from Pansy, who had an equally pretty face but dark eyes with dollar signs in them. That breakup had been long overdue.

Draco took a deep breath. “It’s just that… some strange shite has happened this week. A prickly sensation on the back of my neck. The feeling of being followed. I would put it down to coincidence, to Halloween, except…” He unfolded his palm. 

The word _Bloody_ was still there.

“Shit.” Hermione responded exactly as he had done. “When… how did this happen?”

“A few hours ago. Took a nap before Quidditch. I swear the dorm was completely deserted! But when I woke up, I’d been marked.”

Hermione ran her finger lightly over the word. Draco shivered at her touch. 

Everyone had laughed when Dumbledore had assigned her as Draco’s Muggle Studies mentor. Everyone knew he would hate it. Everyone had been right. 

Until Draco saw, early on, what everyone failed to notice— an undeniable sense of connection between him and Granger. 

“How did you not feel this?” Hermione asked now. She glanced up to make certain no one was nearby, then continued to brush her fingers over his palm. “You can’t wash it off?”

“No.” Draco watched her, his grey eyes dark in the low lamplight. In his imagination her fingers were stroking a completely different location on his body.

“Has anything like this ever happened before?” Hermione asked.

He caught himself before blurting, “Only in my dreams.”

“No. Not until…”

“…we played Bloody Janus.” She answered for him.

Hermione withdrew her fingers and they stared at one another. 

Draco wanted to tell her that old and eldritch things could be lurking. In the dark _and_ in the light. Mysterious, unexplained things that all Malfoys and Blacks honored, though they lay outside the realm of what was magically known and understood. 

Things that others might call superstition. 

Instead, “Didn’t you have a logical explanation for the face we saw in the mirror?” Draco asked.

“Yes. But what I don’t have is a convincing argument for what you’ve experienced this week.” She touched his palm again. “Strange. They’ve used the word _Bloody._ But there isn’t any real blood. You’re not cut. Maybe it isn’t dangerous.”

“Janus was a killer.”

“It isn’t Janus. That’s just a game and a Slytherin myth.”

“It’s almost Halloween. The mirror cracked. The veil is thin…”

“It’s really not that thin.”

Draco scowled. “Granger. For the last three days, I’ve felt like something was _thinking_ about me.”

A deeply interested look lit Hermione’s face. “_Thinking_ about you?”

“Yes. As if whatever was lurking had, I don’t know, maybe intentions toward me? Plans? It’s hard to explain. But it felt creepy. Like more than just a… a presence.”

“Yet you didn’t know that it had marked your hand until you saw the writing. That’s weird!” Hermione nodded, her mind made up. This was a mystery and she intended to solve it. “Draco, we need to try and catch whatever is stalking you. No matter what it is.”

“I’m not sure I want to catch it.”

“Are you on Prefect rounds later tonight?”

“Yes. With Pansy.”

“Meet me after rounds. Outside the arithmancy classroom. Come there by yourself. I’ll hide along the corridor and see if anything is following you. It’s simple, but it’s a start.”

Draco smiled and shoved his superstition aside. No matter what happened, he would be alone with Granger later tonight.

*

Blaise and Pansy sat next to each other at dinner. On the night of the Autumn Fun Fest, he’d convinced her that being seen with him was a good way to make Draco jealous. Pansy had readily agreed.

But this was the first opportunity they’d had to put any of their plans into motion. 

Blaise had spent the last two evenings serving detention for unnecessary roughness during Quidditch practice. 

Pansy had missed last night’s Prefect rounds due to cramps— a lie, but she’d used the time to finish an overdue History of Magic project. She’d cried about missing rounds with Draco. Still, she couldn’t risk having her father cut her allowance for poor marks.

They’d been left with no time at all for spying on Draco and Hermione. 

But there was more on Blaise’s mind than thwarted surveillance plans and making Pansy fall for him. Something else had caught his attention. An odd thing, and possibly sinister.

“Pans.” He leaned close to her, the plate holding his half-eaten dinner pushed to one side. “For a couple of days, I’ve had the weirdest feeling… like something might be stalking me.”

“Shit.” Pansy gave him a horrified look. “I thought it was just me.”

“You’ve felt it, too?”

She nodded. “I’ve had the strangest feeling. Shivery. Like I wasn’t really alone at times. Like someone might be watching me. At first, I hoped it was Draco. But Draco wouldn’t seem… spooky.”

“I can’t believe it’s been happening to you, too.” Blaise leaned even closer so no one would hear their words. “Did you notice it before the Autumn Fun Fest?”

“You mean before Bloody Janus?” she hissed. “It couldn’t be him— you and I didn’t do the conjuring chant! We just watched the others. But the mirror cracked. What if Janus escaped??”

“Of course it’s not him, Pans! There’s no proof Janus ever existed.”

“Maybe not, but… Draco’s family. The Malfoys, the Blacks. They all believe that there are unexplained _things.”_ She shivered.

Blaise wanted to say that the Malfoys and Blacks had many beliefs that were crocks of weird shite, but he kept quiet, focusing on their current dilemma.

“You have Prefect rounds tonight,” he reminded her.

“Yes. I’m paired with Draco.”

Blaise scowled.

“What?” Pansy asked.

“Nothing. Just concentrating on a perfect solution for tonight. I’ll sneak in and magick the Prefect schedule so that Draco winds up with Granger and you with me.”

“But I want to patrol with him! I missed out the last time!”

“You can’t very well spy on him if you’re with him, Pans. He won’t bloody make out with Granger if you’re standing there!”

This time, it was Pansy who scowled.

“Let me put him with Granger,” Blaise continued. “Two reasons. You and I can see if anything is stalking _us._ Then we can follow Draco and Granger to see if anything goes on between them.”

Pansy gnawed her thumbnail and reluctantly nodded. “I guess.”

“That’s settled then. I’ll meet you tonight for rounds. Don’t be late.”

*

Halloween was still one day away, but walking the corridors and classrooms of Hogwarts, no one would know that.  
For students of the wizarding world, it was an event to be celebrated all October long. This year, Dumbledore had given permission for the four Houses to do as much magical decorating as they wished. The hallways were alive with everything Halloween.

The corridor where Draco and Hermione patrolled shimmered with an eerie purple light. Black bats and giant, silver spiders dangled from the walls and high ceilings. A pale orange mist rose from large, randomly placed cauldrons. Sometimes, a skeleton rose with the mist, rattling its bones and then sinking back out of sight. There were unexpected screams coming from nowhere. The 4th and 5th year Ravenclaws, whose work this was, had outdone themselves.

Draco and Hermione, walking close beside each other, barely noticed. They were too busy keeping an eye out for stalkers, supernatural or otherwise. And looking for a secret place to snog. 

The first empty classroom they’d gone into held a giant, evil-looking clown that was Spelled to pop out whenever someone opened the door. The clown had completely ruined their mood. But not for long.

Draco slowed his steps, turning to glance over his shoulder.

“That’s maybe the forty-ninth time you’ve looked behind us,” Hermione teased. “No one is there. We’d know! Didn’t you say you could feel the thing… person… whatever it is… _thinking_ about you?”

“That’s not why I’m looking.” Grinning, he leaned back against the wall beside a fake, upright coffin and pulled Hermione into his arms. “I’m pretty sure we’re all alone, at least for the moment.”

She smiled. It wouldn’t hurt to take a brief break from patrolling. 

They wrapped their arms tightly around each other, reveling in the closeness and breathing in each other’s scent. His, fresh and Alpine-woodsy. Hers, like autumn apples with a hint of sparkle.

“Draco,” Hermione whispered. Her fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt as his mouth covered hers. It was the best way to occupy fingers that would rather be reaching for his fly.

The coffin beside them chose that moment to let out an unearthly cackle. The lid flew open and a dozen giant paper bats exploded toward the ceiling, just as they’d been charmed to do.

“Fuck Halloween,” Draco snarled. “At least for this year.” Pushing away from the wall, he took Hermione’s hand and they resumed their rounds. 

They couldn’t believe their luck at ending up paired together. A perfect opportunity to watch for whatever was following Draco, and for some stolen privacy as well. 

Neither had any idea what their future held. For now, they agreed that the feeling brewing between them was the best secret thing in the history of secret things.

Rounding the corner, they entered a corridor that was darker and spookier than all the others. The stone walls seemed to have disappeared, replaced by deep, black velvet. The walls also seemed to be breathing— a strange and steady in-and-out that caused those walking there to breath in unison. At the far end of the corridor was what looked like a giant maw filled with leaping, red flames. Possibly a decorative gateway to hell.

“What group did this?” Hermione asked.

“No idea. I can’t decide if I like it or hate it.” 

Draco steps slowed and he came to a careful halt. “Okay, I officially hate it,” he told her. “We’re not alone anymore. Something’s following us now.”

“Are you sure?”

Draco nodded.

“What do you want to do?”

“Let’s douse our wand light,” he replied. “You go to one side of the corridor and I’ll take the other. If it keeps coming, it will walk between us. We can try to catch it, or at least cast _ Lumos_ and see who it is!”

“On three then,” Hermione whispered. “One, two…”

Both of them slipped to the sides of the corridor and waited in the dark. There was no sound except the unearthly breathing of the walls.

Then slowly, stealthily something came into view. A large form, spectral and misty, wrapped in an old cloak as tattered and grey as any burial shroud. 

They were barely able to make it out, with only the glow from the hellfire at the end of the corridor to give light. 

The figure seemed to be searching the darkness. Until slowly, it turned toward the side of the hallway where Draco stood.

“Malfoy.” The voice, when it came, was an eerie, double moan. “I’m here. For _you._”

“Who are you?” 

“Janussss,” the voices hissed. “Blood, bloody Janus. A Slytherin’s worst nightmare. You called me. And I came.”

_“Lumos!”_ Draco and Hermione barely had time to cast the spell when their wands were magically whisked from their hands and sent flying down the hall. 

But not before they’d seen what lay beneath the hood of the tattered cloak. Something more than two eerie, overlapping faces. Something with two entire heads.

*

Around the corner in the bat-and-spider corridor, Pansy stood weeping by the open coffin as Blaise did his best to comfort her.

The irony of her mourning her dead dreams beside a fake Halloween coffin was not lost on him.  
The two of them had met earlier in the evening for rounds, and Blaise had brought the news that Theo and Daphne were being stalked, too. No one knew what was happening, only that it was weird as fuck. 

He and Pansy had set off, speculating, watching their backs, and keeping an eye out for Draco and Hermione.

They’d finally come upon the other couple near the Charms classroom and had slipped along behind them, far enough away to make no sound and arouse no suspicions. 

And then Granger and Malfoy had ended up tangled in each other’s arms, snogging so hard that they were oblivious to stalkers of any sort— spectral, human, or somewhere in between.

It was the definitive moment Blaise had been hoping for.

While he hated for Pansy to be hurt, it was best she learned the truth now and not later. Draco was never going to be in her life, ever again, except as a classmate and a friend. 

“I’ll _ruin_ his life,” Pansy sobbed. “I’ll ruin both their lives! I’m going to tell everyone that we saw them making out. You’ll back me up, won’t you?”

“No.”

“What??” The shock of his words reduced her tears to simple sniffles. “Why… why not?”

“I explained it to you early on. Leverage is sweeter than revenge. Let them have their moment. We’ll keep what we saw to ourselves. That sort of knowledge could be very useful, for all kinds of things.”

Pansy wiped her cheeks and stared up at Blaise She did enjoy revenge, there was no doubt about it. But leverage, that was a truly Slytherin concept. Dropping her eyes, she studied Blaise from beneath her lashes. Clever. He was so clever. Maybe even more clever than Draco. Why had she never noticed it before now?”

“Will you at least think it over?” he asked.

She’d just opened her mouth to say ‘maybe’ when shouts and curses erupted from the adjoining corridor.

*

Blaise and Pansy raced around the corner and straight into a nightmare.

The long hallway was entirely dark, except for a creepy, fiery hellmouth at the far end. The walls were breathing. And midway along the corridor was a writhing, tangled pile of something that looked inhuman. It moaned and twisted as it fought to split into separate entities, like a gigantic, asexually reproducing amoeba.

“Get the fuck off of me!” Draco’s voice. Furious and definitely human.

_“Lumos!”_ shouted Blaise. His wand lit, followed by Pansy’s. 

In the sudden burst of light, they saw Hermione Granger perched on top of a grey heap and pummeling it with her fists.

Draco was strugglting with the burial shroud that covered the thing. Bodies tumbled as he pulled away the sheeting, revealing not a monster but two very real wizarding students.

Ernie McMillan of Hufflepuff and Lisa Turpin, a small, quiet girl from Ravenclaw.

“You!” Draco shouted. “What the hell! _You’re the ones_ who’ve been stalking me??”

Ernie, still on the floor, began to laugh. It was a loud laugh and full of satisfaction.  
Beside him, Lisa joined in. The two bumped fists.

“We did it!” they crowed. “We won! The F.T.S Cup is ours.”

Hermione, who’d been pounding Ernie with her fists, sat up from where she’d tumbled when Draco yanked the shroud away.

“What are you talking about?” she asked angrily. “What did you win? Why were you stalking Draco?”

“And us!” Pansy yelled as she and Blaise waded into the maelstrom.

“What the bloody hell is F.T.S?” Draco growled.

Ernie and Lisa were still laughing. 

“‘Fuck the Slytherins,’ of course!” Lisa replied, tossing her light brown ponytail. “It’s a game! An absolutely brilliant game that Luna and Anthony invented for the Hufflepuff /Ravenclaw Autumn Fun Fest.”

“Everyone paired up,” Ernie explained. “Then we drew Slytherin names out of a hat. The object was to scare the shite out of the person whose name we drew by making them think something was after them.”

“With extra points for creativity,” Lisa added. “It _is_ Halloween, you know.”

“But the Autumn Fun Fest ended three days ago,” Hermione protested.

“Didn’t matter. Luna and Anthony gave us until Halloween to see which team could freak out their Slytherin the most!”

Draco stood staring down at them, his face like a pale thunderhead on a stormy night. “You lot are mental! There’s no way to measure how freaked out someone is!”

“Malfoy, you almost shat your trousers when we cracked the mirror during the Bloody Janus game.” Lisa ‘s eyes gleamed wickedly. “That’s going to count for a lot of points! 

The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, normally peaceful, had very much enjoyed targeting the Slytherins, who sometimes bullied them.

Blaise grinned in admiration. “Leave it to the Ravens to invent a cruel mind game, with subjective scoring to determine who wins.”

“By the way, we were only stalking Malfoy,” Ernie told him. “We have no idea who’s stalking _you.”_

Scrambling to their feet, he and Lisa gathered up their voluminous grey cloak-shroud and headed down the corridor, still laughing. “We can’t wait to tell our Houses that you actually attacked us! You were _that_ scared! Mind fuckery for the win!”

“I don’t know why you think it’s so funny!” Pansy called after them. “Revenge isn’t sweet, you know!” 

“It was for us!” Lisa called back. 

“F.T.S! F.T.S! Fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em!” Ernie chanted as the two rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

*

After they’d gone, silence fell on the long, dark corridor. The only sound was the continued breathing of the black velvet walls.

“Shut up,” Pansy growled at the darkness. Then, “If McMillan and Turpin weren’t stalking Blaise and me, who was? Was it you?” she asked hopefully, turning to Draco.

“Me? I broke up with you. Why would I stalk you?”

“Because you miss me and want me back?”

“Forget it. I would nev…”

“It has to be Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff, remember?” Hermione broke in.

Pansy glared at her. She imagined ripping out the other girl’s hair and throwing her in the hellmouth at the end of hallway. But she said nothing, keeping Blaise’s advice about leverage in mind.

Blaise yawned, stretched, and dropped one arm around Pansy’s shoulders, his eyes on Draco the entire time. “I’d say rounds are pretty much over for the night. I’m exhausted. It’s hard work being spooked. Right, Malfoy?”

Draco shot him an evil look. “We jumped on the stalker without even knowing what it was. I’d call that being NOT very scared. Tomorrow’s Halloween. I’m going to rest up.” 

He turned and walked away, but not before giving Hermione a significant glance. 

“Goodnight,” she said, to no one in particular. She headed the opposite way, toward the long flights of stairs that led to the Gryffindor tower.

Pansy began to cry again, just a little. She watched her romantic dreams of Draco walking away from her. In two different directions. 

“I’m still going to hex them. We saw them together. They are together. And I’m going to hurt them for it.”

Blaise shook his head. “Forget them. Who even knows if it will last?” _But it will, with a little luck. So will we._ “You can hex them later, if you still want to. In the meantime, come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend. I hear there’s a new shop with jewelry from Paris. Chic and expensive.”

She turned to him, an intrigued look on her face. 

“The Malfoys aren’t the only ones with money, Pans.”

Pansy smiled then, the tears on her lashes making her eyes glitter like chocolate diamonds.

A whisper, barely there. A giggle, barely heard. A rustle of movement from the other end of the long, dark hallway.

“Shite,” said Blaise. “I forgot.”

*

The second she was out of sight of the others, Hermione turned, running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. One corridor over, Draco was doing the same.

They rounded the corner and flew into each other’s arms.

“You’re _not_ bleeding,” she teased, mocking the Janus chant.

“Don’t worry. Because it’s _no one’s_ blood.” He mocked back. 

“No Janus. No stalkers. And no worries.”

“Not for us.”

Laughing, they grabbed hands and sprinted for the stairs to the abandoned Prefects’ bathroom.

FIN


End file.
